Raumforschung und Raumordnung | Spatial Research and Planning

The quest for certainty: Introducing zoning into a discretionary system in England and the European experience

Sebastian Dembski — 2023-07-26

The critique of planning and new proposals to reform the English planning system and “rethink planning from first principles” have led to the introduction of rules-based principles into what is regarded as the paradigm of a discretionary planning system, culminating in a recent White Paper, which it is claimed will create a faster and better planning system than the existing discretionary approach. But are these proposals based on an oversimplified understanding of the differences between discretionary and regulatory models, neglecting, for example, the negotiation between stakeholders and the flexibility which also exists in regulatory planning systems? Our contribution will review some of the recent changes of the English planning system and reflect on experiences with zoning in European countries to bust the myth that the planning reform claims to address: the possibility to combine faster decision making with better place making and less interference from local planning authorities.

Housing in times of crisis – effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and the energy crisis on housing preferences and housing location decisions

Angelika Münter — 2023-09-21

Since the beginning of this decade, society has been confronted with multiple crises that also act as new drivers of spatial development. Based on a literature review and qualitative interviews with housing market actors, this paper presents an interim balance of the lasting influence of the Covid-19 pandemic on housing preferences and location decisions as well as initial empirical knowledge and theses on the effects of the 2022 energy crisis on these decisions. It emerges that the energy crisis already has a greater impact on spatial development today and will probably have a greater impact in the medium and long term than the pandemic. Housing preferences that arose during the pandemic have already shifted again or can no longer be implemented at present. At the same time, the influences of the pandemic can no longer be considered in isolation from the energy crisis. While the pandemic will further intensify spatial deconcentration processes, the effects of the energy crisis are spatially more differentiated. Moreover, in a time of multiple crises, future spatial development will not be shaped by individual crises, but by their interaction – also with long-standing trends such as the ageing of society.

Planning conflicts in the pluralistic democracy

Markus Hesse — 2023-08-31

This paper deals with planning conflicts in the pluralistic democracy, based on an international literature review. The aim is to trace the state of research on how spatial planning deals with conflicts. Moreover, we reflect upon the development of major planning paradigms with regard to this topic. To this end, some basics on conflict and conflict resolution in spatial planning are presented. The collaborative planning paradigm, which appears hegemonic in planning theory and practice until today, is then critically discussed with regard to its handling of conflicts. Subsequently, agonistic planning theory is introduced with reference to the work of political scientist Chantal Mouffe. This concept claims to deal specifically with conflict, which renders it particularly relevant for this topic. In conclusion, the paper reflects on the extent to which agonistic planning can have practical relevance for the regulation of conflicts and how this can be achieved in contemporary planning practice.

Pilot Projects to Secure Local Supply in Rural Areas. Start-ups, Community-oriented Entrepreneurs and Public Funding as Drivers?

Patrick Küpper — 2023-08-29

The usual store formats can hardly be operated economically in places with fewer than 2,500 inhabitants. In line with the spiral theory, the resulting retreat from the area offers new commercial opportunities for innovative forms of offering, such as staff-free 24/7 markets or online ordering options. At present, a wide variety of actors are experimenting with new and flexible approaches, and it does not yet seem foreseeable which models will ultimately prevail. How can the initial experiences be systematized and what is the potential for establishment? To this end, we compare five pilot projects that use decentralized, mobile and digital formats to bring everyday goods to consumers. For the five case studies, 35 semi-structured interviews were conducted with experts and customers. Central comparative dimensions are the context of emergence and the actor constellations, the contribution to local supply, the economic viability as well as the social function of the offers. The results show that two cases are strongly subsidy-driven or depend on public support. In two other cases, the social function dominates with the involvement of socially oriented enterprises, where the approaches can rather fulfill a complementary supply function. Finally, there is also a new format that at least has the potential to be rolled out on a large scale in rural areas of Germany and beyond.

Planning Conflicts and Participation: the Gigafactory Tesla

Manfred Kühn — 2023-06-19

Conflicts are considered as vital elements of plural democracies in agonistic political and planning theory. According to this theory, antagonisms are to be tamed and channeled into agonistic disputes. Therefore, forms of participation in planning procedures play a key role in the resolution and regulation of conflicts. The central question of this paper is the role of participatory procedures in planning in order to resolve and settle conflicts, which occur in a particularly sharp way in the context of large-scale projects. The paper presents planning conflicts and forms of participation using the case of the settlement of the Gigafactory Tesla in the German state of Brandenburg. Within the framework of an empirical case study, the approval procedure of the project and a land use plan procedure of the municipality are analysed. Both procedures are characterized by a great acceleration, early preliminary decisions and participation deficits. The result shows that in the case of the settlement of Tesla, in addition to conflicts of interest, values and location, procedural conflicts also occur, which call the acceptance of planning into question. The forms of participation practiced do not prove suitable for taming conflicts, but rather produce mistrust among opponents and reinforce antagonistic dynamics.

Managing and controlling diffuse urbanisation in France: Spatial planning practices in cross-border city-regions

Camille Le Bivic — 2023-09-21

Abstract

Managing and controlling “land take” of agricultural and natural land for urbanisation is the target of European and national policies. Although this objective seems to be increasingly understood among the actors, the prioritisation of issues and the measures taken by governments to achieve it are very heterogeneous. The practices of local public and private actors do not necessarily follow the directions established at national level by the instruments. This paper examines the concrete forms, in France, of collective action in the field of spatial planning to limit land take, particularly in French cross-border areas that are experiencing strong urban growth. The survey is based on 60 semi-structured interviews with public actors involved in the spatial transformations of the cross-border regions around Geneva, Lille-Kortrijk-Tournai, Luxembourg and Strasbourg-Karlsruhe. The survey shows that collective action in spatial planning is very diverse in France, depending on the regions and municipalities concerned, even if the legal rules are the same. Local public actors play strategically with the rules and adapt them. Moreover, the organisation of collective action to limit land take is marked by interdependencies between regions, and in our case between neighbouring countries, which are often left unexamined in national planning policies and instruments.

Socio-spatial differences in older urban residents’ engagement against transportation noise? Implications for distributional and procedural justice in noise action planning

Natalie Riedel — 2023-09-01

Exposure to transportation noise is a highly prevalent health burden in urban areas. Social-spatially unequal distributions of transportation noise exposure can contribute to health inequalities (distributional environmental justice). Noise action planning according to the EU Environmental Noise Directive is the instrument for noise abatement at the local level. In this context, public participation in terms of procedural environmental justice becomes relevant. Socio-spatial indicators used to describe environmental justice mainly deal with the distributional aspect. The question is to what extent both unequal environmental quality on the one hand and unequal participation on the other can be traced by indicators and spatial units typically used in social monitoring at the local level. Using the distance measure index of German social welfare rates and the local voter turnout in 2014, the socio-spatial distribution of factors of objective environmental quality, subjective noise exposure and engagement against transportation noise among older residents in three major cities in the German Ruhr region was examined. In order to address the observed inequalities within noise action planning, distributional and procedural aspects have to be integrated in noise action planning.

Planning Conflicts and Justice: Conceptual Considerations Using the Example of Wind Energy in Northeastern Germany

Eva Eichenauer — 2023-08-14

The energy transition and the expansion of renewable energies are central challenges to planning. In view of tightened climate protection targets and the associated rise in installation capacity, planning conflicts are likely to intensify further in the coming years. At the same time, democratic institutions are under increasing pressure. The expansion of wind energy must proceed swiftly while democratic participation must be ensured. Based on planning conflicts over wind turbines in Mecklenburg-West Pomerania and Brandenburg, this paper addresses the extent to which research on planning conflicts can benefit from a justice perspective, both in theoretical-conceptual and empirical terms. Drawing on concepts from research on spatial justice, energy justice, and planning justice, the paper uses a three-dimensional conception of justice to identify access points for dealing constructively with conflicts. First, conflicts have to be recognized as such and their productive potential has to be acknowledged. Second, strategies have to be established that allow conflicts to be dealt with constructively. In doing so, several dimensions of justice must be taken into account: distributive justice and the question of what is to be distributed according to which criteria, recognition justice and the reflexion on difference and needs beyond hegemonic majority opinion, and finally procedural justice, which is intended to ensure that recognition and fair distribution can be implemented. In this way, a proactive attitude towards planning conflicts can make a central contribution to sustainable and democratic planning.

Institutional Gaps in Agonistic and Communicative Planning Theories. Critical Implications of the ‘Systemic Turn’ in Deliberative Democracy Theory

Raine Mäntysalo — 2023-08-17

The paper critically reviews communicative and agonistic planning theories from the viewpoint of a systemic turn in deliberative democracy theory. While the approach reveals complementarities between the theories, it also argues that each theory is vulnerable to criticism because of an ‘institutional gap’. The theories are found to complement each other in addressing planning conflicts at different dimensions. Communicative planning theory deals with conflicts between different stakeholders’ interests in planning processes. Agonistic planning theory, in turn, concentrates on conflicts from a more ontological dimension, related to the (implicit) conflict between hegemonic and marginalized discourses and related identity-forming processes of inclusion and exclusion in planning policies and governance. The institutional gap of communicative planning theory is argued to reside in its focus on situational deliberation that largely ignores the institutional dimension of rules and norms of democratic conduct. Agonistic pluralism, in turn, does engage with the dimension of democratic institutions, but in an overly critical manner, making it difficult for agonistic planning theory to address the dynamic interplay between institutional reconfiguration and policy stabilization in planning. This is argued to be the institutional gap of agonistic planning theory. The paper calls for further work in the field of planning theory to incorporate a systemic approach to deliberative democracy and thereby tap into the dialectics of institutional and situational dimensions of planning.

Bridging Fractures – New Localism as Heuristic and Means to Productively Transform Conflicts?

Valentin Domann — 2023-06-15

According to agonistic democracy theory, conflict is key for the functioning of plural democracies. In particular in ‘fractured’ societies, deliberative spaces in which adversary positions can be recognized and negotiated, serve as important arenas where antagonisms can be transformed into agonisms. Professionals dealing with conflicts between different interest groups – for instance in the field of spatial planning – are therefore challenged to identify appropriate ‘spaces’ for debate. Against this background, this paper discusses the extent to which localist discourses and practices can facilitate such spaces. For this purpose, we introduce a scheme for classifying different manifestations of New Localism. This scheme is unpacked and discussed by means of two contrasting case studies that reconstruct notions of New Localism based on a migration-related conflict in a rural area and on a conflict about traffic calming in an urban neighbourhood. Thereby we show how localist discourses and practices can contribute to establishing common symbolic spaces and temporary conflictual consensus, but also to concealing and normalizing exclusionary positions in small-scale conflicts.

Beyond agonistic planning theories: The “normality“ of protests and their influence on conflict resolution in spatial planning

Grischa Frederik Bertram — 2023-07-26

Since the “communicative turn“ planning research has been intensively concerned with how conflicts should and are dealt with. Approaches of “agonistic“ planning theory contradict the normative premise of building consensus among planning participants. Rather, they want to make conflicting positions normatively fruitful for spatial development. At the same time, they emphasise a supposed duality of planning and protest, which is questioned in recent protest and movement theory. Building on a discussion of different approaches in planning and protest theory as well as an empirical analysis of planning-related protests in Germany, this paper shows that these protests are increasingly perceived as “normality“ by planning actors and that antagonistic participation remains culturally bounded despite increasing conflictuality and the supposed questioning of representative democracy. Protest action is part of differentiated “participation bundles“ that, depending on the situation, also include public participation, direct democratic referenda and lawsuits. Protesters usually pursue a reform-oriented agenda that does not require “taming“. However, the underlying conflicts often cannot be “resolved“ at all. Planners, on the other hand, may have rationalist and deliberative approaches at their disposal even within an agonistic planning environment, which they use situationally and strategically.

Agonism, decision, power – The art of working unfinished

John Pløger — 2023-08-15

The current debate on agonism has become fixed in an institutional approach: How can an agonistic design institutionally become a tool against forms of domination? An agonistic space needs decisions that do not silence dissensual voices with a finite decision. This paper suggests that this agonistic approach needs de-cisions or simply put, temporary decisions drawn from seeing a decision as a solution for now. A de-cision is not a no-decision, but a decision recognised as temporary. The paper proposes ‘the sketch’ as an appropriate mode for working de-cisionally and unfinished. By having a sketch and working de-cisionally, planners are able to invite agonistic positions to ongoing talks and to act progressively, adaptably, or rationally in the face of emerging circumstances and uncertainty. To work unfinished from a sketch transforms the planning process from being a matter of reaching a finite decision to a strife about how to understand the present and which temporary contours and directions to move on from. The paper as such thus deals with difficult praxis questions, for instance: How is it possible to allow dissent to inform planning praxis in praxis? How can quarrelling and working unfinished empower planning democracy?

Consensus and Conflict in a Power Model of Planning

Wolf Reuter — 2023-05-11

Planning in pluralistic societies implies to propose measurements in situations of dissent and unsolved conflicts. Insofar it is congruent with the domain of politics, inclusive the involvement in the network of effects on existing or awakened, mostly divergent interests. In the resulting case of conflict, their respective representatives try to influence the plan – by their arguments in a rational discourse and by means of power. However, argumentation itself turns out to be a mean of power: As their agents try to push through themselves against resistance, they definitively enter the mechanisms of power acting. Following these considerations, a power model of planning is developed, with its logical structure, its calculi, means and instruments, as it is embedded in its societal conditions, with its ethical positions and including trials to hinder its misuse by procedures.

Legal Perspectives on the Idea of Agonistic Planning

Wolfgang Durner — 2023-05-04

Historically, the emergence of planning law and the juridification of planning in Germany did not follow any planning theory, but a logic inherent to the constitutional state. Only in small number of cases did the legislature or the judiciary adopt elements of planning theories, most of which were developed much later. Law defines itself by its strict claim to be obeyed. Therefore, the requirements of planning law may conflict with the recommendations of normative planning theories and then claim precedence over these. Nevertheless, with regard to the viability of some proposals of agonistic planning theories, legal borderlines arise. This paper deals with these borderlines. However, the goal of agonistic theories of planning coincides with the basic function of planning law to pacify conflicting interests and to reach acceptable solutions. Opponents of state planning projects thus are entitled to participate in planning procedures and to file far-reaching lawsuits. However, the legal order also sets limits to legitimate resistance to democratic planning and cannot refrain from distinguishing between legitimate and illegitimate forms of rejection.

Making land available. Cultural legal comparison of the German Building Land Mobilisation Act and the partial revision of the Swiss Spatial Planning Act

Andreas Hengstermann — 2023-02-14

Planning practice is confronted with seemingly contradictory challenges, such as the qualitative and quantitative provision of housing paired with reducing land consumption. To address this apparent dilemma, legislators are increasingly relying on densification. However, a fundamental prerequisite (and often a significant challenge) for this is the availability of the land required. Recent planning law reforms in Germany and Switzerland aim to increase the effectiveness and speed at which land is made available for inner development, thus meeting the seemingly conflicting planning policy goals. This paper compares recent legislative efforts in Germany and Switzerland using the comparative law method. The German Building Land Mobilization Act includes amendments to the Building Code (Baugesetzbuch) and the Building Use Ordinance (Baunutzungsverordnung), intended to enable faster activation of building land and the creation of more affordable housing. To this end, the amendment expands existing instruments for the activation of building land and introduces simplifications to the planning law. In Switzerland, the Spatial Planning Act has been partially revised to achieve inner urban development through precise regulations on the expansion of building zones and instruments to ensure the implementation of zoning plans.

Book review of: Gurr, Jens Martin; Parr, Rolf; Hardt, Dennis (eds.) (2022): Metropolitan Research: Methods and Approaches

John Harrison — 2023-08-17

Book review.

Book review of: Heinig, Stefan (2021): Integrierte Stadtentwicklungsplanung. Konzepte – Methoden – Beispiele

Johann Jessen — 2023-07-06

Book review.

Innovative Property for Innovative Land Policy: Four Normative Principles

Benjamin Davy — 2023-07-18

Innovative land policy does not yield to the pressure of short-term capital exploitation. Rather, innovative land policy establishes a fair balance between the interests of landowners and the public interest. As a keystone of land policy, property – particularly if open to innovation – plays a vital role in achieving this balance. This commentary explains four normative principles that help design innovative property. Since the four principles derive from long-standing ideas about property in land, the commentary uses a distinctly conservative approach. This approach, however, is quite innovative in the face of the reductionist view of property as a right that only serves the purposes of its owners. According to the first principle, innovative land policy must pay attention to the nexus between private and common property. Under the second principle, property in land must account for the government’s positive duty to provide for adequate land uses for all. The third principle distinguishes between property rights of natural and legal persons: personal property guarantees individual liberty, but corporate property is a social function, not a right at all. The fourth principle reminds of the inseparable bond between property in land and land ethics.